In honor of the Semi-quincentennial of the United States of America 

the Woodstock Historical Society  

is pleased to share an article about Woodstock’s role in the American Revolution, an excerpt from a new book on Woodstock’s history being published this fall. 

Woodstock Takes A Stand 

by Charlene Perkins Cutler 

Woodstock celebrates Independence Day with fireworks, parades, the East Woodstock Fourth of July Jubilee, and picnics. Perhaps in the middle of the festivities, one can reflect on the Declaration of Independence (1775) and the subsequent Revolutionary War (1775-1784) – both outcomes of the unbearable taxes and duties imposed by the English Parliament.   

Discontent with English rule began as early as 1740 in Woodstock. Most commerce was done by trading goods and services as there was little coinage in the colonies. It was England’s practice to keep gold and silver coins in the homeland, and the Parliament had issued regulations against exporting bullion or coin. To have a more convenient system with which to transact business, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony set up a land bank that issued paper notes against 20-year mortgages on land. It was an extremely popular system that increased the amount of land owned and  it worked. Speculation and politicization caused the paper currency to become inflated. A Parliamentary act ended the Land Bank.   

The Colonial Governor Belcher enforced the new restriction by forbidding the officers of militias and tradesmen from passing the notes, excluding lawyers who accepted the notes from appearing in court, and threatening to dismiss militia officers who continued to use the paper currency. Woodstock was divided. Fifty-three people petitioned the town to allow the use of paper money and the town responded, “No person to serve the town that will not accept Land Bank notes.” Judge John Chandler, although sympathetic to the dissenters’ position, was required to enforce the Governor’s directives. “Woodstock’s persistence in making legal tender of the obnoxious Land Bank notes in the ace of the Governor and Civil authority of Massachusetts Bay Colony was an evident ‘product’ of the independent and ‘mobbish’ principles against which she had been warned by Judge Chandler (Larned ‹2› 90-1).” As a result, three militia companies resigned their commissions, and no representative was sent to participate in the General Court. 

Numerous and unbearable Parliamentary legislation plagued the colonies:  the Sugar Act, 1764 (taxed imports of textiles, wine, coffee, sugar),  the Currency Act, 1764 (devalued Colonial paper money), the Stamp Act, 1765 (placed duties on newspapers, legal and commercial documents), the Quartering Act, 1765 (listed circumstances under which colonists must provide food and lodging for British troops), the Townsend Act, 1767 (placed duties on English imports to colonies - china, glass, lead, paint, paper and tea), and the Tea Act, 1773 (gave exclusive rights to distribute tea to the East India Co.).